… go out in the mid-day sun. According to Noel Coward, that is. Well it must be catching. A goodly number of Italians, some quite young but many of “a certain age”, take to the hills on a regular basis. I was invited to join one such group by a German friend who does regular hikes, and foolishly I accepted. How hard can it be?

Quite hard, as it happens. This walk was over the border in France, in the Mercantour National Park that covers a sizeable area in the Maritime Alps. It was billed as a walk of about 6 hours and my friend, having been on a previous one, reckoned it would cover about 10km. “That’s fine”, I thought; “I take the dog on a 5km walk most evenings and it only takes an hour or so. This one must be full of rest stops.”

I should have read the fine print, as it were, which mentioned a total ascent and descent of 800m. That’s around half a mile vertically and turns a stroll into a serious climb. That and the fact that summer has arrived, with temperatures even high in the mountains approaching 30°C in the middle of the day. Oh, and by the way it wasn’t 10km; it was 20km. That makes a bit of a difference, but nobody thought to mention it (to me at least).

So I packed what I thought would be necessary and drove down to the meeting point at Olivetta, on the edge of Italy, where I met the rest of the group. 18 of us in total; 2 Germans, 1 Englishman (with mad dog) and the rest Italians. Ages mostly 50+, one or two being well into their 70s if I’m any judge. We piled into six 4x4s and headed over to France; along to Breil-sur-Roya then up into the National Park. We had to cover about 5km of steep unsurfaced track before even reaching the starting point for the walk; this was great fun and at last provided me with an excellent excuse for having recently bought a second-hand 4×4. That’s my Fiat Sedici in the middle of the photo.

We set off, leaving the track and taking to a footpath, almost immediately coming across some fallen trees on a particularly steep slope. This caused some difficulty for one or two of the more elderly and less agile of the group but eventually we got past the obstructions and continued on and up.

There’s no doubting the area is spectacular. The cars were parked at about 1100m and the highest point of the trek was around 1900m. This high you’re above most of the view, with only a few peaks higher than yourself. In winter of course the whole area is deep in snow, but in June it’s Alpine meadow, with lush grass and plentiful wild flowers. At one point while traversing a 45° slope I heard a thumping noise and turned just in time to see the back end of a large Chamois disappearing down the mountainside. How they travel at such speed without breaking something I cannot fathom.

I should mention that it’s probably 40 years since I attempted anything of this magnitude, and although reasonably fit it may not have been the wisest thing to do such a long walk, at high altitude and in blazing sunshine, without trying a couple of shorter ones first. I carried a litre of water, plus another half-litre or so for Buffy, but it was nowhere near enough and I was rationing both of us long before the end. My equipment was pretty pathetic compared to all the seasoned walkers, apart from my boots; an excellent pair of Clarks I’ve had for only 20 years or so. These, my leather Australian bush hat and my bargain basement girly rucksack set me apart from the others with their lightweight hiking boots and framed backpacks. But I’m English so I’m allowed to be eccentric. I do plan a trip to the outdoor products outlet shop up at Limone Piemonte for a bit of retail therapy before the next walk.

It took us about 4 hours to reach the highest point. We couldn’t actually get to the top as planned because it was ringed with an electric fence to keep sheep in. And we were warned that the farmers’ dogs are half-tamed wolves with a high level of aggression towards anything that isn’t a sheep, but particularly towards small dogs. And people. So we skirted that bit.

We stopped for lunch by the side of the track that was to be our route all the way back down to the cars. These tracks were constructed in centuries past by local warlords with an insatiable desire for conquest, a ready supply of peasants and mules and little interest in workplace safety. The whole area is apparently riddled with tunnels and bunkers and is in fact the southern end of the Maginot Line. It’s also about the only interesting part of Europe you can take a 4×4 off-road in summer and very popular with German off-roaders who aren’t allowed to do that kind of thing at home, though we didn’t encounter any vehicles at all.

I had at least had the foresight to bring an adequate lunch for myself and another for Buffy, though I needn’t have bothered about the latter, who was far more interested in scrounging from the other walkers. However, my preparations were as nothing compared to that of the Italians, whose rucksacks disgorged not only lunch but home-made biscuits and cakes, wine, grappa and even ground coffee with a Moka coffee maker and a Camping Gaz stove to boil the water. It takes more than a 7-hour trek to separate an Italian from his after-lunch grappa and real coffee.

After an hour for lunch we set off on the long descent. The sun was still blazing but the sky over nearby mountains was developing an interesting purple hue and rumbles of thunder accompanied us intermittently all the way back. When it rains you have little time between the first large drops and a downpour with a complete lack of visibility, so we hurried along, unwilling to partake in that particular delight. As it happened we were lucky. A few drops had fallen on the cars while we were away but none reached us.

So that was it. Nothing more left except to pile back into the cars and make our way back to the bar in Olivetta for a round of Panaché (shandy) before heading home to a welcome shower. A day later all I have is a few aches but surprisingly no blisters, just a memory of a challenging but enjoyable day out with some really nice people. Will I do it again? Quite likely, but only after the above-mentioned shopping trip.

For the past few months we’ve been getting really quite smug about the bountiful warmth of the climate. Our wood pile was looking like it would serve us out not just for this winter but perhaps well into next.

But now reality has struck, with temperatures falling into low single figures at night and often not much higher ones in the daytime. Sunless days with a chill wind is no joy in the typical Riviera house, built for endless summers, with un-sealed windows and cold stone floors. The view above is of Monte Bignone in summer; today it’s invisible under a heavy cloud blanket. Up the track to the ridge we have views of Monte Torraggio, the peak that looms over Pigna. A few days ago it and all its neighbours were impressively white-capped:

The news from across the border is of heavy snowfalls in Provence, so there’s a good chance we’ll be seeing some of it too. Or maybe not; these things are as ever unpredictable.

As for the wood pile, it’s rapidly being desecrated, with a barrow-load each day going into the maw of “The Beast”, the dual-fuel boiler that runs our central heating, and into the cassette stove in the living room. The Beast also eats wood pellets, but the “bancale” of 65 bags delivered back in October is now half its original size. It’s a matter of estimating when winter will end, or more accurately when central heating will give way to open windows again. Do we buy more pellets (at winter prices) or maybe a lorry-load of split logs? Or will the other pile, that I cut during last year from our own olive trees, last out?

Logs are good if you have the space to store them. If you grow them yourself they also need cutting, storing and splitting and the latter of these provides an opportunity to invest in some serious man-toys. There’s a huge choice of electric, petrol or manual hydraulic log splitters, but most are pretty expensive and I was concerned as much with where to keep the thing when it’s not in use. Then I discovered an ingenious Swedish device that uses impact rather than continuous pressure, takes up very little space and costs under half that of the cheapest hydraulic machine. I proudly present the following video.

Pellets are also good but they have a downside. Being just compressed sawdust they are vulnerable to damp, which turns them back into dust that clogs the inside of the boiler. In theory they are safe inside their plastic bags, but when back in November we started to use the left-overs from last winter we discovered they’d been investigated by rats, who had nibbled the edges of the bags, allowing damp air to get in and ruin the contents.

The rats were obviously both gourmands and artists. Having sampled wood pellets they decamped to the roof space, where they discovered a rich treasure trove of those belongings that we all keep, afraid to take to the skip in case they might just be useful one day. Among these items are some lightweight wheeled suitcases containing old blankets, clothes and whatever. The rats ignored the contents but carefully nibbled the plastic wheels into artistic shapes, rendering them useless if they were ever needed for their original purpose. Does this prove a philosophical point about the distinction between art and utility, or am I just losing my marbles?

For their final course they returned to the garage and discovered on a shelf a 5-litre plastic can of engine oil. This proved to much to resist so they carefully chomped a corner, allowing the contents to leak out, down the wall, under the emergency fridge everyone keeps in a garage and across the concrete floor. It took me a while to figure out why the fridge should leak oil in such large quantities while continuing to function normally, but when I looked behind it the realisation dawned.

So now we have strategic placements of rat poison in places that cats are unlikely to visit. To early to tell if it worked.

Finally, I’ve been clearing out some junk from the afore-mentioned attic. There are two “rooms” up there and though one contains our own stuff the other, less accessible one is full of junk left by the original owner of the house some decades ago. I came across a box whose contents were wrapped in very old pages from the Nice Matin newspaper and which when unwrapped turned out to be half a dozen old Monaco numberplates. For those who don’t know, these bear the current year number and must be changed every January. Here’s the oldest:

This, and quite a lot of junk of a building construction nature, tends to confirm that the original owner of the house in the 1970s was a Monagasque who must previously have owned the land. The question is whether an antique Monaco numberplate has any value (of if I’m breaking some arcane local law by holding onto such a plate). I’ll keep it anyway for possible decorative purposes.

Just under two weeks ago my daily morning routine changed. Instead of the usual lie-in before showering and breakfast there’s now a one-hour trek with the dog. We usually take the path beside our house up into the hills and follow it for a kilometer or two, then either turn back or follow a track down to the road and walk back along that. It must be doing me some good, and I heard only a couple of days ago that people who keep dogs live longer. Or does it just seem longer?

There are some side-benefits, one being the free breakfast, which at this time of year is blackberries and figs. Blackberries carry an official green stamp of approval for dogs, and Buffy loves them, having quickly learned to help herself to those close enough to reach. She puts the whole bunch inside her mouth then carefully sucks the ripe ones. Though it’s always easier to beg a human to provide ready-picked berries. Sometimes I even get to eat a few myself.

Then there’s figs. I always carry a supermarket plastic bag, just in case, and this morning I picked 2.5kg – well when it’s free, why not? While I was thus occupied Buffy carried out one of her favourite experiments, being to find out how many windfall figs can be fitted into the stomach of a small dog. Quite a lot, it would seem. I read that ripe figs can have an adverse effect on some dogs, causing coughs, wheezing or diarreah, and the recommendation is to limit them to 1 or 2 per week. Oh dear; this morning she must have taken a whole month’s worth. Still, she’s been doing it for a couple of weeks and I’ve seen no signs of any ill effects. Figs are full of potassium, sugar and fibre so I’ll let Nature and Buffy have their way.

The figs in my carrier bag are destined for the freezer. I halve them and lay them out on trays for freezing, then pack them into plastic bags. I’ll miss the free breakfasts once the crop is finished but at least we’ll have them for cooking. Figs are a versatile fruit and can be used in surprising ways. Our favourite is to stand them upright, slit an X at the top and squeeze them so they open up like the pupae in Aliens (but without the slime), then wrap them in Parma ham or speck (bacon) and drop a knob of Gorgonzola into the X before baking them for ten minutes or so. This makes an excellent starter.

The other day we took Buffy to the beach. It soon became apparent that this was an unfamiliar experience and revealed that she has a fear of water. This particular stretch of beach is where the river Roya exits into the Mediterranean, and there’s a narrow shingle shoreline with a freshwater lake behind it. Even though the latter is mostly as flat as a millpond, the slightest ripple spooked Buffy. It took me half an hour of standing in the water to get her to venture close enough to drink from it. Whether I’ll ever get her to swim and enjoy water like other dogs only time will tell.

Italian beaches are plagued by salesmen. Africans and people from the Indian subcontinent patrol up and down the beach all day and the restaurants at night hawking cheap jewelry, sunglasses, straw hats or umbrellas (in summer?). Most are fairly polite and go away when asked, but others can be rather persistent, especially to single women. Every now and then the police have a purge and move them on, but it’s only ever temporary. Buffy took considerable exception to one who was wearing a huge hat and waving an umbrella at her:

It’s just as well I don’t like to stay long on a beach. With its large pebbles, this part of Ventimiglia beach is extremely uncomfortable to lie or walk on barefoot, and when not barking at salesmen Buffy just wanted to run off and play with other dogs, a practice not always welcomed by other beach users, so I attached her lead to a large stone to slow her down. I had a couple of swims but the pleasure was largely spoiled by the discomfort of clambering out of the water and back to my footwear. I think a pair of plastic sandals might be a good idea for next time.

]]>http://eclecity.net/2014/09/06/september-6-2014/feed/0August 25, 2014http://eclecity.net/2014/08/25/august-25-2014/
http://eclecity.net/2014/08/25/august-25-2014/#respondMon, 25 Aug 2014 17:29:29 +0000http://eclecity.net/?p=360A new member of the family

This is Buffy. Say hello to Buffy. Good girl Buffy.

Buffy is (most probably) a miniature pinscher (MinPin), crossed with something like a pointer. She’s a year old and had been at the local boarding kennels for the past two months after her previous owner smashed himself up comprehensively in a motorbike accident. Fortunately for us he did all the hard work of bringing up a maniac puppy, instilling into her some basic training and respect for authority, but nevertheless, she’s a high-octane bundle who can stay on the move all day before crashing out.

After 2 days I’m just starting to appreciate the challenges of taking on a highly intelligent, hyperactive animal like this. Some things are easier than might be expected; she’s a very quick learner, has bonded quickly, accepting me immediately as pack leader, and already knows several English words (and an unknown number of Italian ones). For a rescue dog she has virtually no hangups other than an apparent dislike for open water and a tendency to rush up to cats and greet them like long-lost friends, which few felines appreciate.

The hardest thing to deal with is the unlimited energy. Three walks a day is OK in summer but as autumn then winter approach I may feel less inclined to be up at the crack of dawn (or earlier if I have somewhere to go that day) and put in an hour’s walking. Today we walked her through the middle of Ventimiglia and parked her under a cafe table while we had a two-hour meeting, and she was no trouble at all apart from still being full of beans when we returned home.

The most immediate challenge is to get our two cats to accept the new family member. Lola, our black-and-white people-lover, is already showing interest and will probably become good friends with Buffy, but Little One is nervous of both people and dogs and will take some time to overcome her fears. She also has a tendency to go off for days at a time and stroll back in as if nothing were amiss, with no apologies for the distress caused. This happens every few months, usually in good weather, and although we’ve kept Buffy away from the area normally frequented by the cats, Little One has once again disappeared. Is it because we finally have our long-awaited summer, or has she taken exception to the sudden proximity of a lunatic mutt? Only time will tell.

Just below the last big picture in the article is a reference to aromas being pumped around the arena. Below are a couple of photos of the (partly-completed) machines they will be using; I’ve just spent the last 7 days working non-stop with the designer to build them. Each has a fan pumping air down four tubes fitted with solenoid-controlled shut-off dampers and each tube is filled with a cartridge impregnated with the scent of cut grass, roast beef or whatever.

Working like maniacs we got the machines completed yesterday with about an hour to spare and drove them to Nice airport. They arrive in Manchester tomorrow and are due to go operational on Thursday. I’ve never worked on a project with such a tight deadline – some would say impossible – and it gives me great satisfaction to know that without my help they’d still be sitting uncompleted in a back yard in Dolceacqua.

So this is what I left Coventry for. It’s the kind of work I was doing 40 years ago and I actually enjoy it quite a bit. Working with real tools – screwdriver, wire strippers, soldering iron – makes a change from sitting at a computer and I’d forgotten how physically tiring it can be. Though maybe it wasn’t 40 years ago when I was still young. Most people wouldn’t recognize it as any kind of definition of “retirement” but I didn’t sign up for endless golf or lying about on a sun-lounger all day. Work of this kind comes in intermittent bursts so there’s little chance of dying of boredom and it makes a great change from building websites and writing these blogs.

To make life even more interesting we’ve recently had a furious round of social events, either entertaining at home or going out somewhere. Tonight was a personal invitation to a cocktail party at the Metropole Hotel, a superb establishment in the middle of Monaco next to Casino Square. The event was held to celebrate a recent redesign at that august institution. Sounds like the usual rub-shoulders-with-the-rich exercise, and yes, I suppose it was, but I rather like the Metropole; undeniably grand but with a real family atmosphere. I hear it’s a prized place to get a job and I’m not entirely surprised; the staff seem very happy and relaxed. The champagne and food flowed all evening and was of a standard way above the usual dreary canapés found at lesser events all over town. Why were we invited? Well, because we’re press. We’ve been keeping The Riviera Woman running for over 7 years and have always been fair to people instead of indulging in the more usual media snide and celebrity-chasing.

It’s all come as a bit of a shock. One day it’s – well, chilly; the next it’s stonking hot. At lunchtime today our house was the hottest place in Europe or North Africa. That’s official. Y’see, I’ve been using a social networking app called Wezzoo, which exists for people to post reports about their local weather. It displays a map showing coloured dots for all reports in the past hour. Most of these are automatic, being provided by weather stations around the world, but there are geeky types like me who regularly post pictures showing their local weather. At the time the temperature here was touching 32°C today there was nowhere else in the whole of Europe and North Africa that could match it. Or if there was, nobody reported it. So there.

-ooOOOoo-

Anyone who knows Apricale will be familiar with the Bar Tarocchi, located on the road running past the village. Well recently it’s had a makeover following a change of ownership and a change of name, now being the “Apricus Osteria”. Gone is the down-beat, old-fashioned and cheap plastic furniture, having been replaced by stylish steel tables and chairs with planked tops to match the new wooden floor. Both the interior and the exterior have had the same treatment and the result is a great improvement. Our village now has a good meeting-place without the need to trek up to the piazza. We’ll have a meal there one evening and see if the food lives up to the promise of the decor.

When I first moved to Italy in 2006 I spent most of the first year out in the garden, a rocky hillside not far from where I now live, digging a couple of vegetable beds. In fact, I don’t recall doing much else that year. Then circumstances changed and for the next 3½ years lived in a small Ligurian village house with no garden, followed by 2½ years working in Coventry and living in a small flat, again with no garden. So when I returned to Italy at the end of 2013 I was a bit out of practice.

After a couple of months of near-constant rain, Spring arrived a couple of days ago. One morning the mountain opposite was like this:

and the next we were bathed in sunshine. Traces of the snow remain but the transformation is dramatic.

All this was most welcome so I went out to prepare an ‘orto’ (vegetable garden). Just a matter of digging a few rows, just as I’d done 7 years before, but after a couple of hours every joint was aching and I could hardly walk. All for this paltry result:

Something has changed over the past 7 years and I rather fear it’s me. OK, it’s been a while since I performed that kind of physical labour, and even since I’ve been back the days I could work outside have been few and far between. But I have to admit my enthusiasm for subjecting myself to that kind of treatment has waned. Like the artilleryman in The War Of The Worlds my achievements fell some way short of my ambitions.

Time for some mechanised assistance. That evening I pored over my computer for a couple of hours before selecting what I hoped would succeed where I had so far failed miserably. Three days later a large box arrived. For anyone interested it’s a model Z2 “motozappa” (yes, that really is what the Italians call them) from Eurosystems, made in Italy with an American Briggs & Stratton 125cc 4-stroke engine.

The instructions said “Assembly time: 5 minutes”, and allowing for the usual hunt for tools and my general ineptitude they weren’t far wrong. Within an hour the machine was purring away, eager to get to work.

The following morning I was up bright and early to play with my new toy. It turns out there’s not a lot of skill needed; the main thing is to learn how to stop it marching about all over the garden with its driver in tow. I’ve never known a machine that started so readily; no choke, just a gentle pull on the cord and off she goes. An hour later the terrace was looking like this:

and a couple of hours after that the job was done:

All that remained was to remove the rocks dug up by the motozappa – you can see some of them on the right. Small stones are ignored by the machine; rocks of a half-kilogram or so it spits out on one side or the other and when it comes to a large obstruction the whole machine leaps out of the ground as if on springs, upon which it’s time to fetch the pickaxe.

Other recent endeavours include the continued pruning of olive trees. Here’s one about to be topped for firewood, leaving a tuft of small branches around the lower stem that over the next couple of years I’ll prune into the standard umbrella shape that’s optimal for the best supply of olives.

It’s not a comforting position; up a ladder holding a chainsaw with half a ton of wood balanced precariously above your head. I’d tied it to nearby trees to prevent it falling back on me and had a couple of helpers ready to swing on the ropes. The gap I was gradually cutting started to widen a little so I backed off down the ladder to put down the saw then returned and gave the tree a shove. There was a most satisfactory cracking sound and it fell majestically onto the terrace below with a healthy thump, just missing the mimosa that’s in full bloom right now.

The felled tree is now cut up and stacked to dry out ready to be split for next winter’s firewood. Job done again.

You often hear people complain that the road outside their house is like a race track. Well ours actually is.

The Sanremo Rally takes place every year, as a series of stages in which owners of sporty vehicles drive them up and down the local mountain roads. Perhaps not actually a race in that they are mostly driving singly, but enough of one that the road must be closed to normal traffic each day this is happening. You know it’s coming when all the parking spaces along the road are roped off with plastic tape bearing the legend “Dangerous – Pericoloso”. This presumably being to prevent out-of-control cars crashing into the family jalopy.

Although the road is half-kilometer drive from here it’s actually much closer, being directly below us on the 30-degree slope that constitutes this mountainside. So we get – literally – a bird’s-eye view of the passing traffic, as well as a bird’s-ear audio experience. And they are somewhat noisy. I’m no expert but they would all appear to have race-tuned engines with high-efficiency (aka “loud”) exhausts. In the mountains sound travels for miles, disappearing and reappearing as the cars go in and out of sight behind hills, and you can’t quite tell which direction it’s coming from as it echoes back and forth.

This is a corner near where our track joins the road:

The Italians don’t excel at providing information so I don’t know how often these events are run (but I believe it’s several times a year) or how long before we can use the road again. There are a couple of marshals at the junction so I guess I could ask, but it’s a drizzly kind of day so I have no particular desire to go out.

Now I know I’m completely out of touch with what other folks regard as “fun”, but this particular variety of motor sport seems to me to be more than usually geeky. I’m all for going for a drive in the country, and it’s rather nice being behind the wheel on these mostly deserted mountain roads, but I can do that in my old Fiat Punto. No need to spend thousands on building a racer, most of which seem to be classic cars of one kind or another.

Maybe it’s the element of danger. At one point this morning the roar of engines was replaced by the wail of a siren as an ambulance came down the road. I assume one of the drivers misjudged a corner and either went tree climbing or launched himself into space off one of the unprotected edges. I often wonder how they decide where to put Armco.

It must take quite some effort to organise these things. Closing roads (often the only one) over a large part of the region is not something to be sneezed at; the Italian love of regulations will ensure that hundreds of pages of forms will need to be filled in, signed the usual three times then duplicated three times more. And the guy who went tree climbing or flying will no doubt have caused a storm of paperwork.

Always ask first

Just outside our house is a large fir tree that’s getting larger every year. It blocks the light during the morning and as it’s right on the edge of the terrace the wall below is showing signs of outward pressure from the roots within. So it seemed entirely reasonable for me to take a chainsaw to it.

However, when I asked a neighbour to watch over me as I did the deed in case I needed an ambulance, there came a flood of dire warnings. According to locals you can’t as much as cut the grass without permission from the Corpo Forestale (Forestry Commission) and if I were rash enough to cut down the tree somebody in a helicopter whose job it is to notice these things would be along to slap a ten thousand euro fine on me.

Do they really take photos from the air, compare them minutely for signs of change then drag people through the courts? I can believe it for buildings, where unauthorised extensions are common, but for trees? Is the Italian state that bloated? It all seemed like a ready excuse to do nothing at all, but I felt that in this case it was probably best to ask permission first than to seek forgiveness later. We tooled down to the local Corpo Forestale office (open to the public 3 hours a week), where we got the usual friendly Italian reception and assurances that as the tree was less than 15 metres from the house and we were out in the country we could do as we liked with it. So once my minder is free, down it will come and be added to next winter’s firewood pile.

No, this isn’t about a Robert Redford film. Readers of this blog will have noticed my obsession with the weather, the damage it has done to the roads and the bonanza of free firewood to be picked up all along the coastline. Basically, rainfall in January over most of Europe was around four times the seasonal average, and all this rain eventually ended up at the sea. I now return to the subject with renewed enthusiasm.

Ventimiglia is located between two rivers; the Nervia to the east and the Roya to the west. Both have deposited the previously mentioned free firewood onto the town’s beaches in immense quantities, and there it currently lies while the authorities try to figure how to dispose of it in time for the arrival of tourists in the summer. Some tidying up has been done but there’s a lot more work needed.

But there’s another interesting consequence of the heavy rainfall. Being something of a geek I’ve always been fascinated by a river meeting the sea; the fresh water rushing down so purposefully only to be nonchalently absorbed by the much bigger body of salt water. It’s probably a metaphor of some kind, but I haven’t worked out exactly what. (Anyone care to add a comment?)

In the case of Ventimiglia, a curious thing has happened to both of its rivers. For as long as I can remember (about 7 years) the rivers have each flowed into a freshwater lake behind a narrow shingle bank dividing them from the sea, with a channel on the western side (on the right from the rivers’ points of view) leading to the sea. The lakes are one of the things that make Ventimiglia special, as you’ll find wildlife all around; swans, ducks and large number of freshwater fish. The city forefathers have resisted the urge demonstrated by some of their neighbours over in France to concrete everything over and manage the flow, and the two lakes are a remarkably peaceful place to spend a sunny afternoon.

Only now they’ve changed. The lakes are still there but the shingle banks, presumably overwhelmed by the huge extra water flowing during the storms, have changed and the rivers have both headed east. Instead of forming the usual orderly western exit they’ve copied Orford Ness, where the river Alde gets within spitting distance of the sea then abruptly turns right and only joins the sea ten miles further down the Suffolk coast. Here the kink is left rather than right, and it’s for 500 metres or so rather than ten miles, but this is only the Mediterranean, after all.

In the upper picture the sea is on the left, the lake is ahead and the water is flowing past where I’m standing. The lower picture shows it making its way to where it joins the sea.

All this is rather attractive but it leaves another problem for the local authorities. On the left of the picture above you can see the clubhouse of the local windsurfing and kitesurfing club. Although the Riviera is relatively tranquil there are days when there’s enough wind to make either pursuit enjoyable. But now the surfers must carry their equipment across a narrow, fast-flowing and cold river before they reach the beach itself. And these are people who understand wind and tides. Other summer visitors arrive with children who will immediately head for the water, only to be dragged 500 metres along the coast and dumped into the sea itself.

So however attractive the area has suddenly become, it’s not likely that the authorities will tolerate it remaining that way. I’m assuming they will bulldoze the ‘proper’ channel and block up the river’s present course, restoring normality.

Firewood takes a fair bit of work, starting with some advance planning. You need to cut it at least a year before you want to burn it. In the meantime it has to be felled, cut into rounds and stacked for a season or more – depending on where you live – to dry out. Eventually it’ll be ready for splitting; you’ll know when because the rounds develop natural splits as they dry. Log splitting itself is easy if you have a good aim with an axe, but a splitting wedge and a club hammer are surprisingly effective too.

Trouble was, I only returned back here at the end of December, so the initial stages above didn’t get done. The only wood available was a few dead plum trees I’d cut back in the summer and logged up. These lasted us a month or so but with January ending the store was running seriously low. So having decided to buy some firewood (see the last blog) we phoned the yard a few days ago and today they turned up with a thousand kilos of cut logs.

I love the Goldoni tractor. Having lived in a Ligurian village I know they are one of only two vehicles that can navigate the carruggi (narrow streets) with their tight bends. The other is the ubiquitous Ape, that three-wheeled micro-truck with its buzzing 50cc engine and a maximum load of 150kg. By comparison the Goldoni is the Incredible Hulk, a muscle-bound big brother that’s the favourite of local farmers, being able to go almost anywhere carrying far greater loads. It’s basically a small cab atop a large engine with two wheels underneath, then an articulated connection to whatever is being towed or pushed. So you get 4-wheel drive, a tight turning circle and tyres that will climb the side of a house.

This one carried its load down from Bajardo, about 8km further up into the mountains, then carefully reversed into our garden, round the first tight bend and onto the first terrace where it could unload.

From there the load divided into about 15 wheelbarrow journeys (I lost count) to the log store at the end of the terrace. A few days earlier I’d cleared out an unholy mess of rubbish left by the previous occupant of the house, and the logs fit in nicely. It’s surprising how small a pile a tonne makes, at least when you’ve just spent an hour shifting and stacking it. There was plenty of room left over for the remainder of the plum logs, cut a few months back but left since to soak in the recent never-ending rain. Together they take up about half the covered space, leaving room for the first of the olive logs that should have been cut, dried and split by the end of this year if we get a half-decent summer.

I asked the log man what type of wood he was delivering. He replied “Quercia e leccio”, which translates as “oak and oak”. Come again? It turns out there are a bewildering number of varieties of oak, thanks to extensive hybridisation. In Italy there appear to be three common names, the third of which is “rovere”. I believe the last of these is the “sessile oak” and that “leccio” is the “holm oak” which has a fruit, resembling a fungus, that is much loved by wild boar. I suspect there’s a lifetime’s worth of study lurking beyond these basic facts.

We tried out the new stuff this evening and found a noticeable difference between the new oak and the old plum, bay and birch we’d been burning up till now. Oak logs are harder to get started but they burn hotter and a lot slower so you don’t get through anything like as much. I’d gotten used most evenings to be continually shovelling the stuff in but now it goes for half an hour or more before needing replenishing.

You’d think that wood, growing in abundance in the local area, would be a local product, but no. Apparently it all comes from somewhere over in Provence. The economics of supply and demand apply here as much as with any other product, so the wood pellets we burn in our boiler come from Austria. I aim to bring things home by cutting my own olive trees and heating the house next winter as self-sufficiently as possible. We’ll see how far intentions translate into actions.